Put A HoloLens In The Classroom And I’ll Happily Go Back To School

Gerald Lynch

Though they’re often being lumped together, Microsoft’s HoloLens headset is a very different beast to the Oculus Rift. Whereas the Rift wants to transport you to a whole other virtual reality world, Microsoft’s augmented reality driven HoloLens wants to invade your real world. And that gives it a far wider potential for educational application.

To hammer home the point, Microsoft’s got the Case Western Reserve University acting as evangelists for its headset, with the university’s key thinkers talking up how, particularly for medical students, HoloLens could be a revelatory learning tool. While the resultant video is clearly using pre-rendered imagery, the thought of being able to manipulate an anatomically accurate digital human body in a 3D space (right down to peeling away layers of skin and muscle to expose the skeleton through the headset’s visor) is the sort of sci-fi study aid that would make even Star Trek‘s Bones green with envy.

Check out the video below (and be sure to check out our thoughts on the impressive E3 demo too). If Microsoft can come anywhere near making the HoloLens experience as convincing as the promo materials are making it out to be, it could be an education game changer.

This post originally appeared on Gizmodo UK, which is gobbling up the news in a different timezone.